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Stanley McHale is a single man rapidly approaching thirty who loves and dreams of the same things he did when he was seventeen. But the band was never formed, the novel never finished, and the ill-chosen career in stand-up comedy is giving him more headaches than headlines. With the self-imposed deadline of his thirtieth birthday to either make an international success of himself or go and work in Woolworths, why not pull yourself up ringside seats for the tragically inevitable descent into mania and psychosis by reading his increasingly inane, pedantic, desperate, harrowing and wretched daily diary. It'll make you feel a whole lot better about yourself.

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December 2005 Archives

Saturday 31st December 2005

Posted by on December 31, 2005 3:41 PM

New Year’s Eve at A’s in Brixton as planned.

Our evening started in quiet fashion. We sat and watched the awful fair that was on offer on TV. This included Dennis Norden’s ‘It’ll Be Alright On The Night 19’. The programme opened with a frail looking Dennis saying how remarkable it was that this was the nineteenth edition of the programme. I digress. It feels like there have been 190 editions of the programme. It’s been around for decades. How can there be as few as 19? That means less than one a year are made. If anything, there are FAR FAR FAR fewer editions of this programme than you would imagine.

Perhaps it’s time there weren’t any more. Tonight’s edition contained some of the worst and unfunny links ever recorded by anyone who’s ever stood in front of a TV camera. The level of humour was so low that it began to dip into the nonsensical. For his closing bit, for example, Dennis said “But of course it’s not a perfect world. If it were a perfect world no-one would ring you on your mobile phone.�

This is maybe the least accurate or valid comedy observation made by a human. Maybe a squirrel has made a worse one at one point but I doubt it. What does he mean? I suppose he’s referring to either lots of people calling you on your mobile phone, which could get annoying but then you can always turn it off, or maybe he’s referring to the irritation of listening to other people answer their phones. But no, he did specifically say “…no-one would ring YOU on your mobile phone� so that it’s definitely about your own phone. If no-one were ever to ring it, you’d feel quite lonely and unloved, surely? I can understand people not wanting to be contactable all the time, but if they’ve bought and own a mobile phone, surely they would want it to ring at least occasionally. Dennis Norden, for all his services to clip-based things-going-wrong-for-actors humour, should throw in the towel. Or get someone to write his unnecessary links because apparently he does write them himself, and because he’s very old now this is probably why they don’t really make any sense.

Friday 30th December 2005

Posted by on December 30, 2005 3:39 PM

We’ve got to that time of the year when no-body knows what day of the week it is. The time between Christmas and New Year sees everyone in limbo, desperately trying to figure out if they should be at work or not. It takes a degree of calculation to figure out where you are. I generally use Boxing Day as a bit of a benchmark, knowing that was the 26th, and then trying to remember how many times I’ve been to sleep since then. This scientific method should give me an accurate idea of my current position in the year.

The second problem is then trying to figure out how long there is to go until New Year. This second calculation is the easier, so long as you can have someone confirm that there are 31 days in December. Once you have these two figures, the distance you’ve come from Boxing Day, and the amount of time that exists in December, you can put this data into a big computer and the results should indicate how many days there are until you have to say “Happy new year!� and get drunk.

The main problem is we have a spate of days around this time of year that are named in alternative ways to simply days of the week. We have Christmas Eve, then Proper Christmas, then Boxing Day, and just those three days make it impossible to remember which day of the week you were on before the whole situation changed. Also, because the days of the week don’t matter when it’s Christmas, only presents matter, you’ve got no reason to try and keep track. Then, when the 27th comes, which doesn’t have a fancy name, you’ve got to try and revert back to days-of-the-week names which doesn’t come easy.

I wonder what life would be like if we named each and every day (like we name Boxing Day, and New Year’s Eve, etc) and just used those names to navigate throughout the year? I think it would be pretty disorientating. I’m not a huge fan of Easter because it throws people off kilter in much the same as Christmas / New Year even though it only has two ‘name’ days, Easter Sunday and Good Friday. I can’t imagine the inconvenience of having to remember the names of 365 separate days, but I think that would be the least of our worries. If a random date, such as September 12th, was called ‘Frogspawn Eve’ or something, and the day later was called ‘Idiot Day’, you’d have to remember that those two went together but worse you’d have to try and keep an idea of pace and structure to your year.

Thursday 29th December 2005

Posted by on December 29, 2005 3:37 PM

To London to catch up with my friend Aria whom I’ve mentioned here a couple of times before. She lives near Atlanta, US of A, but she’s moving here in the new year and has a British fiancé, Wade. I’ve not seen her since I was last Stateside in May and so it was great to catch up. We met in Camden. She had just joined up with another American friend, Holly, who was charming and studies fashion at St Martin’s College, just like in the opening verse to the Pulp song, ‘Common People’. Holly and Aria were charming company and before long A joined us too. It rarely strikes me as odd that the majority of my friends are girls but that’s certainly the case. I do have a lot of female friends and it’s always been that way. I suppose I’m very lucky really. You need the council of women – it’s invaluable and you’ve no chance of ever understanding the opposite sex unless you can pick their brains about things. It amazes me that some men don’t know a single woman. These are the men that cat-call in the street I suppose.

The four of us travelled into Soho to meet Wade for the first time. It wasn’t Aria’s first time meeting him, obviously, she’s engaged to marry him and meeting him for the first time today could only be seen as over trusting and hasty.

I’ve joked before about interrogating anyone wishing to marry Aria to see if they’re of suitable character. In reality, I wouldn’t do that because it’s not my place to and anyway it’s really got nothing to do with me. I’d probably just be told to mind my own business. But I needn’t have worried on that score because Wade appears to be erudite, friendly, funny, sociable and very well presented. So the signs are all good. Aria will admit, any day of the week, to being a compete anglophile and so I suppose it’s inevitable she would eventually marry someone from this miserable little Island and I can’t think of anyone more suitable than Wade. The other good thing about it is there’s bound to be great music at the wedding.

Wednesday 28th December 2005

Posted by on December 28, 2005 8:30 PM

A had decided to come down for a Bumbury in the country today from London but couldn’t get through to National Rail Enquires to see if the journey was possible because of the inch high mountains of snow covering some of the country. The panic this has caused has meant it’s impossible to get through to said rail enquiry line due to the sheer volume of worried commuters wandering if a three hundred ton train powered by thousands of volts of electricity could deal with a breezy bunch of innocent snowflakes. The answer to that was largely ‘no’, but fortunately the line to the coast was open and she made it down for a very pleasant day spend walking gingerly from the pub fireside to the house fireside.

When it came for her to leave in the evening, however, we got to the dark and deserted station to see the electronic information sign saying ‘London Charing Cross… Delayed.’ This is bad news because it normally tells you how late the train is, and it’s new arrival time. Just saying ‘Delayed’ is like a surgeon coming out of the operating theatre and just shaking his head.

So we waited on the snowy platform for half an hour, trying to get though to the lovely National Rail Enquiry people, who are now based, as all call centres are, in India. I’ve personally not got a problem with this at all, but it does throw up some really interesting situations amongst the more right-on members of society (who’ll readily decree almost anything said or done these days to be racist) but still wince in frustration when the Indian phone operator trying to handle their enquiry can’t speak very good English. I don’t think it’s racist to get annoyed when the phone operator apparently representing British Gas can’t understand English very well. It’s just unprofessional. If we were taking calls from India and trying to do it in bad Hindi then there would doubtless be a lot of frustrated Indian customers saying “Can’t speak a word, this one. Typical.�

Tuesday 27th December 2005

Posted by on December 27, 2005 8:29 PM

It snowed hard in the night and so the countryside looked very pleasant this morning. I lit a fire and sat by that for the most of the day, being the youthful go-getter that I am.

The trouble with ‘extreme’ weather (as any phone call to National Rail Enquiries will put it) is it’s marketed as a massive problem by public services and the media which brainwashes people into presuming that services won’t work and it might be a good idea to queue up at petrol stations or find a nuclear shelter somewhere before we run out of resources and DIE. DIE DIE DIE.

The odd panic that spreads amongst British people over the age of thirteen when bizarrely snows in winter is largely the fault of the media. There’ll be no problems with petrol supplies or anything like that but they’ll report ‘the possibility of fuel running out’, to make a snow flurry sound like a terrorist attack, and then the idiot public go and queue around the block for a sniff of gasoline.

For anyone under the age of thirteen, it’s just a bit of a laugh and hopefully some time off school. They’ve got it right.

It’s not original to comment on the British obsession with the weather and our fantastical reactions to any variation in it, we’ll always be like this I suppose, but what fewer people bitch about is the way public services react to temperatures a low as, get ready, two degrees Celsius. In Northern Europe, where Britain happens to be, and where Britain’s always been for the last few hundreds of millions of years, that’s not that cold. We always like to say ‘Of course, a bit of snow never stops the trains in Sweden.’ We never take that a step further and ask why on Earth it should stop them here. Snow doesn’t stop trains in Sweden, and it doesn’t stop trains in France either. Or Italy.

Monday 26th December 2005

Posted by on December 26, 2005 8:28 PM


Apparently the ‘must-have’, which invariably means ‘don’t need’ present this year has been satellite navigation devises for the car. I don’t have one personally because I think that they take something away from the fine art of map reading and, maybe more importantly, stop people thinking for themselves.

I share with my Dad a love of maps and don’t like the thought of them being sacrificed for some petty reason like progress. I think I’m also anti-GPS because I think that people should be forced use their heads and read maps unless they are classified as blind or insane. And neither of these groups should be behind the wheel of a car anyway.

It annoys me when people can’t read maps. Maps don’t use a language of their own, they are just simply, and perfectly logical. They are the most ordered and clear things you’ll ever look at. They don’t have quirks, or devises or underhand rules. They tell it like it is. People say ‘oh I’m hopeless with maps’ but that’s like saying you’re hopeless with shoelaces.

Sunday 25th December 2005

Posted by on December 25, 2005 8:26 PM

I opened my presents this morning and was delighted to find some socks amongst the haul. I’ve mentioned here recently that socks have been transformed from the unwelcome stocking filler of childhood to pure X-mas gold. If it wasn’t for getting socks at Christmas, I don’t know what I’d do… Buy some maybe. But I don’t ever want that dark day to come. As soon as you start buying your own socks you’re admitting to a degree of responsibility that will only lead to darker things. Paying bills. Tax. All that.

The socks I received are from Marks And Spencer’s, are black, and on first inspection suitably unremarkable and functional. But when you take them out of the package, you notice that they’ve got the word ‘Snog-arama’ written on them at the top in large, red, psychedelic letters.

They come in a package that says ‘Socks – To make you snigger.’

Humorous socks are nothing new, but I’m not sure if I get these. First, who would laugh at the word Snogarama? It’s not an actual word, naturally, and so you have to assume that the snigger factor comes from the ‘snog’ part – which means to kiss someone. I don’t know if anyone has found that word funny since Kenneth Conner in about 1963.

Saturday 24th December 2005

Posted by on December 24, 2005 8:25 PM

Normally on Christmas Eve we leave the pub at about half past ten to go to Midnight Mass. The reason for this is that it’s always a pleasure to sing carols, shake hands with people and remember the true meaning of Christmas. It’s also entertaining to sit there in constant pain trying not to laugh because you’ve arrived drunk and therefore everything the vicar says in his sermon is going to be unintentionally hilarious. This is juvenile, but it’s become almost as intrinsic a part of Christmas as mince pies and presents. I can’t remember a single year in the past fifteen when Midnight Mass hasn’t been funny enough to rupture internal organs.

But last year the humour was spliced with disappointment and disbelief at the vicar’s useless sermon, that started in a pleasantly surreal vein and then descended into nonsense. It wasn’t as funny because of this – to be funny the vicar’s speech needs to be utterly sincere and therefore all the more guilt inducing when you laugh at him saying ‘ass’. He means a donkey. Not an arse. But this simple linguistic confusion is meat and drink to the drunken churchgoer and it’s absence last year was sorely missed.

One of my oldest friends in the village is called Polly and she’s as bigger fan of turning uncomfortably purple through repressed hysteria during Midnight Mass as I am, but she refused to go this year. This wasn’t just due to last year’s service being weak, but down to a far more recent Christmas Carol service held by the same vicar in the same church earlier this month. Apparently, at one point in the sermon he talked about people ‘being enlightened by the Lord’ and then got out a big flashlight and proceeded to flash it at the congregation, making their eyes go all funny because it was very bright.

There were two things that Polly (and no doubt the rest of the worshippers) found annoying about this. Firstly, he didn’t just do it the once, but several times, meaning that people were temporarily yet uncomfortably blinded on multiple occasions. And secondly, it’s disconcerting that when the bible refers to one being ‘enlightened’, it surely means spiritually, not by a huge great industrial halogen bulb. The vicar had missed the point of what it means to be enlightened, therefore missing the point of one of the main messages and aims of the bible, and therefore being a bit useless at his job, which is to understand the bible better than anyone.

Friday 23rd December 2005

Posted by on December 23, 2005 8:22 PM

Best made plans… I had planned to be up, out and sat on a train to Manchester by nine to pick up some of the drawings that Mel had done for me as Christmas presents to the clan, then down to London to see A, then train to Tonbridge to catch up with my brother, then train again, deeper into the Kent countryside, to see the folks.

By the time I got onto the train to Manchester, it had already got dark again. Last night had it’s revenge and then there was the 5,675 little things to do before leaving the flat for a few days. Unload the washing machine so the clothes don’t go mouldy. Wash up so new civilizations don’t form in tea cups and begin to war with other civilizations on the saucers. Make people leave.

I had to see what could be salvaged from my day and therefore got to planning. I rang Mel as the train left Liverpool and she arranged to meet it at the platform in Manchester with the drawings. This she did, the drawings look great – photorealistic – so we swapped with a bag of presents from me to the Manchester contingent, and jumped onto a London train leaving minutes later.

Christmas good cheer had rubbed off into Virgin Policy and they were allowing people to upgrade to 1st class for the normal Saturday / Sunday small charge. So a carriage to myself and further journey planning made possible. Having made good time it was now easy for me to make it to Tonbridge and then on to see the family. But A had offered accommodation at hers and so I’ll put the second part of the trip off until tomorrow. It’s not lax – it makes sense.

I like the way it’s possible to start a 300 mile, broken journey, at four in the afternoon and be sat happily in Brixton by eight with a glass of wine. People put too much effort and stress into planning their journeys. There’s people who would have planned Liverpool – Manchester – London months ago. They’d have brought a hamper. People plan these trips as if it’s 1860.

Thursday 22nd December 2005

Posted by on December 22, 2005 8:21 PM

I visited Richard Herring’s Blog today and noticed he too had noticed the advert on the tube for Toucan, the phone company, that I mentioned on the 1st of this month. It’s the advert that says, bizarrely, ‘Who says a phone is just for Christmas?’ The answer to that question is, to my mind, ‘nobody’.

His observations were remarkably similar to my own and yet I had beaten him to this conclusion by 20 days. Let it be known, I am 20 days better than Richard Herring.

I e-mailed Richard to tell him this fact and he replied with a concessionary message admitting that I was right, and that I was the best. I’ve known this for quite a while, and despite him being on TV and having a TV version of his Blog made next year and earning probably one hundred times what I do and having about five million more fans this is very satisfying.

Wednesday 21st December 2005

Posted by on December 21, 2005 8:20 PM

As a special Christmas present to myself I today downloaded a new game onto my mobile phone. I feel that I’ve got as much life out of Midnight Bowling as I can, my player – Russell – is now worth about $5,000,000 as reward for his average bowling skills. I feel that to build up his extraordinary wealth further by continuing in this average vein would be taking advantage of the odd people at the bowling lane he goes to who think that striking six pins down is worthy of ecstatic applause and whooping.

Also, it is nearly Christmas, and I thought that downloading a new game onto my mobile phone would be a good way of worshiping the birth of the Baby Jesus. If only more people would follow my holy example.

The game is called Pub Pool 3D, which is a pool game, set in a pub, in 3D. It’s proving very entertaining so far but seems to have the same basic flaw as Midnight Bowling in as much as the electronic characters that challenge you to a game have one thing in common – they’re all rubbish at pool.

I’m still learning the game but so far have not lost a match which says less about my extraordinary skills and more about the weird places in mobile phone games that are populated entirely by people who can talk the talk but can not walk the walk. For instance, in Pub Pool 3D you have to qualify for the pub team by dispatching three local players. This is pretty easy to do as the locals, despite giving it all “I’ve heard you’re the new kid on the block, but I think you’ll have met your match with me� will then pot the white on their first visit to the table and then stand back whilst you pot away. If you do make a mistake, which is perfectly likely, then you don’t really have much to worry about because ‘Old Ted’ or whoever you’re playing then takes his shot, smacks it miles off target and sinks the black by mistake, giving you the game.

Tuesday 20th December 2005

Posted by on December 20, 2005 4:10 PM

I don’t know why but my Christmas shopping is taking far longer this year than it ever has. My record for doing it all is 43 minutes on one Christmas Eve three years ago. You may wrongly assume that in doing my shopping in that small window of time I wasn’t giving due care and attention to my purchases. Nothing could be further from the truth, it was just a well organised sortie into enemy lines. A smash and grab raid.

This year is different and not helped by the idiots who are well into adulthood but still can’t use a shop properly. Actually, I take that back because many of them are a help. For example, I was in HMV today and saw the queue for the tills was about fifty feet long. I was going to leave but then remembered there are other tills at the back of the shop. I picked up my purchases and went there, where there was no-body queuing up at all and was met my two bored cashiers.

“Why is no-body using these tills?� I asked.

“Because they’re idiots� came the reply.

It’s true. People will always follow the crowd. You see it at cash machines, when there’s one free and a queue for the rest. You assume that the free one is broken or doesn’t have any cash in it otherwise WHY WOULD NO-ONE BE USING IT, but on investigation you see that it’s working fine. So you put your card in and go about the business of taking out money whilst looking at the other queue and thinking ‘What are you doing?’ This has happened many times. The other queue look at you, feeling stupid. Then maybe someone moves in behind you, taking advantage of this mysterious no-queue cash dispenser. People will much sooner join the back of a queue than think for themselves, even in these simplistic circumstances.

Monday 19th December 2005

Posted by on December 19, 2005 12:56 PM

I tentatively started doing a bit of Christmas shopping today. Normally I get it all done on a specific day, and that day is specifically Christmas Eve, but now I’m an adult and I have to buy presents for my friends and not just my family the process isn’t quite as simple.

I don’t know at what age you suddenly move on from purchasing stuff just for your Mum, Dad, Grandparents, Brother, Sister to suddenly having to get lots of little quirky gifts for people you know generally. I think that age is early twenties. Of course, if you’ve decided to go down the route of having a girlfriend / boyfriend then you have to get them a present from about the age of sixteen I suppose. But getting presents for your friends… that’s an early twenties thing.

I hope it is, anyway. I never got presents off friends until around that age so if it’s perfectly normal for kids and teenagers to swap gifts I’ll be ever so slightly annoyed because it means I missed out for several years. There are times when writing a public ‘diary’ that you realise you might have accidentally exposed yourself as ignorant, deluded, or deeply unpopular. It’s like writing ‘I went to the pub today and saw several people enjoying their drinks in GROUPS. Is it normal to go to the pub with other people? I think not!’

Sunday 18th December 2005

Posted by on December 18, 2005 12:35 PM

It looks like New Year’s Eve might be alright this/next year. I’ve had a couple of good ones in the past, one round at K’s, the other in Glasgow, but normally they’re frightful affairs. This year I’ve arranged to go to A’s flat in London for the evening, which sounds very civilised. I think the plan is to simply have a bottle of wine and play a couple of board games.

The trouble with New Year’s Eve is that it’s impossible to make the night live up to any sort of expectation. Even if you’re sat, champagne in hand, in a Jacuzzi on board your own private jet headed to Iceland for the evening you’ll get the feeling you should somehow be having more fun somewhere else.

I hardly need to tell you that going out is a no-no. You know that because everyone’s made that mistake. People say “Forget town. Go to someone’s house party, that’s always the best� and they have a point but the trouble with that is once you’re there, you’re there. There’s no escaping a New Year’s Eve house party because even if it’s rubbish you’re pretty much under oath to stay until midnight and then there’s no-where else to go. And no way of getting there.

There is the option of entertaining at home but let’s face it, that’s just a hassle. You’re also faced with the problem of your twenty guests morphing into three hundred guests at about two in the morning as revellers move in from other parties or just wander through the door. You’re house becomes a pub. There’s an odd ‘rule’ about NYE that you can do whatever the Hell you like because “Come on, Man! It’s New Year’s Eve! Lighten up!� This means most people think it’s fine to enter other people’s houses and just say “Happy new year!� before tucking into all their booze. I’ve seen it happen many a time.

Saturday 17th December 2005

Posted by on December 17, 2005 3:08 PM

I sat about writing my Christmas Cards today. I’ve seen some environmentalists saying that in this digital age we should send electronic cards via e-mail instead to try and conserve the forests that have to make way for the billions of cards sent to people we don’t even really like each year. I suppose they do have a point. If you also take into account the hundreds of square miles of wrapping paper used each year then it must add up to quite a few trees, and the irony of that is trees are made my God aren’t they? So in celebrating the birth of his son, we’re destroying all his lovely work.

I bet this confuses God. If I was him (and despite what some people say, I most certainly am not) then I would be pleased that everyone remembers the birth of my son, the baby Jesus, but quite disappointed that this celebration goes hand in hand with the mindless destruction of forests that I’d spent ages making. It’s very similar to someone coming to your birthday party but giving you a smack in the mouth as a present.

This is probably why God invented computers and invented Bill Gates so that we wouldn’t have to go to the ridiculous lengths of cutting down the forests, turning them into card and paper, and then throwing them in the bin. It’s probably the wastage that angers God.

He probably doesn’t mind the idea of Christmas trees so much. They too are wasted because nearly all of them are not replanted but thrown onto the tip at the end of the twelve days of Christmas, but at least they are dressed up to look nice for a bit. At least the Christmas tree draws attention to God’s work as an excellent maker of trees, because people will always stop to look at a Christmas tree and comment upon it, saying “What a lovely tree�.

Friday 16th December 2005

Posted by on December 16, 2005 7:10 PM

I’ve been thinking more about the origin of surnames that I brought up on Wednesday. If you’ve not read Wednesday’s entry I suggest you might if you want this one to make any sense at all. Pathetic Lot is turning into a bit of a soap opera, you’ll think it’s rubbish and tacky if you only read one entry every once in a while. If you read it every day, however, you’ll just think it's rubbish.

It’s occurred to me that some profession-based surnames have clearly been made up by early social climbers. ‘Knight’ is a good example. That would suggest that at some point in history, one of your ancestors was a knight. But there can’t have been THAT many knights – I reckon a lot of people simply invented good surnames for themselves when the system was in it’s infancy. Checking into a 17th Century hotel for example;

“Yes. It’s two people for three nights, please. The name is Knight.�

“Knight. Really? Your ancestor used to be a knight?�

“Yes.�

“What was his name?�

“Eric. Eric the brave.�

“Are you sure about that? Are you sure your name isn’t Mr Pageboy?�

“No. It’s knight. Definitely.�

Thursday 15th December 2005

Posted by on December 15, 2005 11:18 AM

Liverpool FC are out in Japan at the moment playing in the ridiculous and energy sapping FIFA World Club Championship. It’s a complete waste of time to engage in this sort of thing half way though the domestic season but there you go – at least it gives us the rare opportunity to watch live football at ten in the morning.

The BBC commentators were reliant on the Japanese footage and therefore couldn’t dictate what appeared on the screen or when replays happened and so forth. During the first half the commentator said, in reference to the number of close ups of Peter Crouch, “Our Japanese director seems to be a little bit obsessed with Peter Crouch.�

Of course he’s obsessed with him! Peter Crouch is 6’ 7�, the little Japanese fella has never seen anything like it in his little Japanese life! He can’t help but train all his cameras on him – it’s not out of admiration for Crouch’s football skills, it’s just for the entertainment of the slightly scared Japanese public. They’ll never have seen the like!

I wonder who the tallest Japanese person of all time is?

Is it racist to ponder who the tallest Japanese person of all time is because it’s playing to the stereotype of people in the Far East being on the short side? No, it’s definitely not racist. All the Japs are midgets.

Talking of abnormal size, I went to see King Kong at the cinema today. It’s an astounding piece of work, ridiculously exciting. It’s the most entertained I’ve ever been in the cinema, easily. But one thing bothered me when I looked at the credits on the poster… Universal Presents… Peter Jackson Film… Jack Black… Naomi Watts… all okay so far… and then it says ‘and Andy Serkis as King Kong’.

Wednesday 14th December 2005

Posted by on December 14, 2005 2:59 PM

I was watching the news this morning and there was some chap on there talking about hospitals who was called John Baker. It got me thinking how some surnames are descriptive of occupations, and how at one point in history Mr Bakers’ ancestors would have actually have been bakers, hence the name.

Obviously quite a lot of surnames come about through occupations. Thatcher, they thatched roofs. Smith was clearly the Blacksmith. Gardener. Farmer. Cook. Tyler. The Tyler’s being a more modern family than the Thatcher’s because they used tiles and not straw. The Tyler’s probably made fun of the Thatcher’s a bit; “Old fashioned!� “That’s definitely not going to burn down!�

I wonder how the whole system of surnames started? I imagine that initially people were just called John the Thatcher or Allen the Gardener, which is purely descriptive, and then the decision was made to just shorten it to John Thatcher. Or Allen Gardener.

But say this happened about 1600 or so – the year 1600, not at 4pm – national communication wasn’t what it might have been and so how did everyone take up the new system? I can imagine ONE village elder sorting it all out for ONE village but how did this new, modern system spread? Well, obviously it started somewhere and so who made that brave early step?

VILLAGE ELDER: Right, thanks for coming everyone. I’ve got an idea about our names that I think you might quite like. Up until now we’ve just called ourselves John the something or Roger the something, and so I’ve decided it might be a good idea to have a ‘family’ name, depending on your trade.

HERBERT THE HUNTER: Sorry, come again?

VILLAGE ELDER: Well, you’re a good example, Herbert. Instead of us all calling you Herbert The Hunter. You’ll just be Herbert Hunter.

HERBERT THE HUNTER: What sort of difference is that?

VILLAGE ELDER: Well, the big difference is that not only will you be called ‘Hunter’, you’re children will be called Hunter and your wife will be called Hunter too.

HERBERT THE HUNTER: But my wife doesn’t hunt.

Tuesday 13th December 2005

Posted by on December 13, 2005 11:49 AM

I’ve not mentioned the Hemel Hempstead oil fire. It seems the fire crews finally conquered it today but I think they’ve missed an opportunity of sorts. There’s not a great deal of tourism in that part of the country, being as it is part of that 100 mile deep circle of banality around London, so surely a nice big fire could attract a few visitors?

So there might be a couple of environmental concerns… I think the good people of Hemel Hempstead would, given time, learn to love their monstrous oil fire and be quite proud of it. There could be signs directing curious visitors from the motorway ‘Inferno; next left’, and despite being a magnificent sight the fire could be a useful destination for school science trips wanting to learn about combustibility and chemical reactions.

If I was a kid and my parents asked where I wanted to go for a day trip, a petting zoo or a raging ‘doomsday’ style oil fire, I know what I’d say. I’d say ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’

Shop keepers in Hemel Hempstead itself could defiantly take advantage. Pubs could apply for late licences and have signs outside saying “If she’s still burnin’, we’re still servin’�. Garages could advertise ‘Oil changes that won’t cost the Earth!’ Job agencies could put signs in the window reading ‘Don’t let your career opportunities go up in smoke (like all the oil in the depot)!’

I bet the head of Hemel Hempstead council was standing around on Monday going “Oh God. This is dreadful. Our poor town.� And then one of his councillors comes up and says “That’s not the only problems boss. The Red Lion has completely run out of beer because it’s been full of journalists for the past twenty four hours. They’ve never done such business. And Mrs Hogg in the local shop has almost completely sold out of notepads and pencils. Also, slightly morbid onlookers from all over the county have been filling the cafes and that. We’ve never seen anything like it.� And the head of the council thinks “Wow. If we could keep this bastard burning for the next year it could yet save my hated arse.�

Monday 12th December 2005

Posted by on December 12, 2005 5:11 PM

I awoke in a Manchester hotel and rang Trevor. One of the great ‘encores’ of a night on the tiles is being able to ring your fellow reprobates and laugh about it the next day. This has the duel purposes of reigniting memories you’d forgotten and more importantly sharing the guilt and responsibility.

I had a sore chin from the punching but after a few glasses of water, big mug of tea and generous shower felt fine. I went to visit Athena and spent the majority of the day finding reasons not to have to face the cold platform that would stand between me and a train home to Liverpool. I’ve got quite a bit of work to do this week but as I outlined yesterday, there’s a certain pleasure in purposefully not doing it and giving up the day to selfish pleasure instead. I believe a lot of writers and comedians call it Game Boy Syndrome.

So I spent the afternoon laid out on a sofa watching daytime TV with Athena’s flatmate Mel. She’s an artist but I wasn’t aware of this until I happened to ask to see what she’d been working on for the past hour as we watched Des And Mel. It was a copy of a photo her friend had given to her of a man I presumed to be a relative. In all the time Mel had been working, she’d replicated only the head of the figure, about an inch and a half high, but in astonishing detail. It was like a photocopy, but done entirely in tiny, tiny biro strokes. I was gob smacked. If any of you want a portrait of someone done in fearsome detail from a photo in time for Christmas, let me know in the comments section below and I’ll ask if she’s got the time. I reckon she’d probably do it for about £30-£40 so it would make an excellent gift. I’m not pimping her, you understand, it’s just that you might be stuck for something to give Mum and Dad…

Sunday 11th December 2005

Posted by on December 11, 2005 12:33 PM

Dad had to catch an early afternoon train so we settled for a farewell pint in Doctor Duncan’s which is close enough to the station. Trevor joined us and talk turned to doing things off the cuff and on a whim. We agreed that it’s a rare thing these days for people to simply take off and have a good time without first trawling through brochures, buying insurance, informing loved ones, informing the boss, informing the wife, packing a sensible bag and not forgetting your toothbrush. But the near-lost art of the impromptu bender is a magnificent one, one that we can’t give up to history and less hectic times, and one that should be resurrected as a staple part of everyday life.

Trevor engaged in a magnificent European jaunt earlier this year, arriving at the airport with nothing more than a willing companion, a passport, and a credit card. No baggage, and no idea where they were going until they looked at the departures board. Furthermore, whenever they decided to return to the airport to get a flight home (because they should have been at work) they booked a flight to an even better destination instead. That’s outstanding behaviour. They only returned at all because his passport was going to expire a day later.

Trevor only told me the sordid tale this weekend and I’ll never grow tired of hearing it. The joy is in the details. They only booked business class seats anywhere because they didn’t serve drinks in economy, and besides, even if you can’t afford it (ESPECIALLY if you can’t afford it), the art of the bender is to conquer guilt and refuse apology, so therefore it’s imperative you spend three month’s wages on business class seats instead of paying a fraction of that for the same flight sat up the back.

It’s also absolutely imperative to do it on the company’s time, without a word of warning before leaving and daily phone calls home with more outrageous excuses for your absenteeism. Otherwise it’s just a holiday, after all.

Saturday 10th December 2005

Posted by on December 10, 2005 11:20 AM

The good thing about having a friend or relative to visit is that you can visit all the culturally significant places you don’t think to go to as a resident. You can explore the museums, the galleries, and the historical points of interest. I say you CAN, or you can spend all day in the pub as you normally would which is pretty much what Dad and I did.

To be fair, we did visit the Anglican Cathedral which is always a pleasure. We took at trip up to the top of the tower too which I’ve done a couple of times before but always find fascinating. It’s an obvious point, but when you giddily make your way up the inside of the bell tower you can only wonder who the hell it was that was tasked with the responsibility of laying the millions of bricks needed whilst sitting on a plank hundreds of feet above the ground being buffeted by wind. People were made of different stuff back then.

Although, come to think of it, the cathedral was only finished in 1971. So people were made of different stuff in the early 70’s? Yes, yes they must have been. I think that was well proven in ‘On The Buses’.